Harper, meet Riley
by wimsicalpan
Summary: Dylan always got the girls. Beka always got the guys. Even Rommie had more luck than him. But Harper? He got to look on with hope and desire. Until he's drinking vodka spiked Sparky in a too costly bar on a backwards drift with an Earth girl. Eventual Harper/OC story.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: Harper is without a doubt my favourite character from the series. Almost ever. And every guy, including Harper, needs a little love in their life, even if it's just for a night or two right? Also, this is going to be set at some point in season 2 after Ouroboros.

**Shout out **to **dino-dog83** for doing an awesome job of beta reading this for me!

**Characters**: Harper/OC mostly. Will see plenty of everybody else though.

**Rating**: T to be on the safe side.

**Summary**: Dylan always got the girls. Beka always got the guys. Even Rommie had more luck than him. But Harper? He got to look on with hope and desire. Until he's drinking vodka spiked Sparky in a too costly bar on a backwards drift with an Earth girl. Eventual Harper/OC story.

**Disclaimer**: All I own is Riley. Nothing else is mine.

Harper, meet Riley.

Chapter 1

Five days. Dylan had given the six man crew of Andromeda a five day, much deserved break and Harper was doing his best to find a woman to talk to. On this whole drift, with its numerous bars, he was certain there had to be at least _one_ woman who he could charm for the night. Just one. Right? No, apparently not. Four hours of bar jumping later and he resigned himself to drinking alone.

Dylan and Rommie remained aboard the Andromeda holding down the fort. Trance had told him she wouldn't be a part of his lonely ploy and Beka always left him to his own business while she went about her own. Probably looking for the next big score. And Tyr, well, nobody knew where he'd disappeared to, but right now Harper wouldn't mind that Nietzschean's company.

The bar he was in was almost full and as Harper elbowed his way to the bar he studied the crowd for a girl he thought he'd have a chance with. After a good look around he'd had no luck and definitely no chance of a night of love and fun in the sheets. Those that he did spot were either already with somebody, busy eyeing up some other competition or in too large a group of mixed company for him to have any luck.

He was halfway through his third beer of the night, having switched from Sparky Cola some time ago, when the group of Kalderan's behind him made sounds of indignation. He turned his head over his shoulder to see a brunette woman, definitely human, push _through _the group with an apologetic smile on her face. "Yeah?" she muttered. "Well don't just stand in the middle of the room taking up all of the space like a group of Nightsiders who think they own the floor."

Harper couldn't help his grin at the woman's words. The Kalderan's, however, were not quite as impressed as Harper. They all seemed to turn to glare at the woman who'd interrupted their grouping. She ignored the Kalderan's glare as she took the empty seat beside Harper. He wasn't staring, he thought to himself. Honest. Right? No, he was staring. Maybe this, just maybe this right here; this woman next to him was his luck finally changing. It's what he'd been waiting for.

If she noticed him staring she didn't say anything as she tapped the bar top and attracted the attention of the Chichin owner. "Hey Nolsch, can I get a beer?"

Hearing her order Nolsch set about grabbing a bottle of amber gold liquid and pushing it in front of her. "You didn't pay your tab from last time," he grumbled.

As she stuck her hand out to grab her drink Nolsch moved it just out of reach. She sighed. "I'm good for it. You know that."

"Ten percent interest." He pushed the bottle back into her waiting hand. "And that's on top of tonight."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll pay." She pulled the cap off her bottle and took a gulp. When she put the bottle back onto the bar top her head turned towards Harper and her green eyes met his blue ones with a look of curiosity in her gaze. "Hi."

"Hi," he said, his mood perking up when he spoke. Seamus Zelazny Harper was back in business, at least, he hoped he was. "You do know a ten percent interest is practically theft right?"

She laughed. "This whole place is theft," and she pointed a finger to his drink. "Much cheaper at the _Three Moon Saddle_."

"Oh yeah? So why are _you_ here then?"

She shrugged one shoulder and took another sip of her drink. "Because a cute blonde guy ran out before I had a chance to even say 'Hi'."

His luck _was_ changing and he certainly was back in the business of wooing those of the opposite gender. As much as he told himself to play it cool and to keep her interested, his mind couldn't help getting stuck on the word 'cute'. "Cute? Not manly? Obvious genius? And of course, easy to make others jealous."

She laughed and his years of talking to women, no matter how short the conversations were, let him know when a laugh was a laugh and not forced. Her laugh was honest and good. "You better be as smart as you proclaim yourself to be." She took another sip of her beer.

He smirked. "And if I wasn't, would that be a problem?"

Again, she shrugged and he watched as she shuffled so that she was leaning over in his direction. "I have a thing for the cute, smart guys. And," as she leaned even closer he couldn't help but to lean into her a little himself. He watched as her eyes dropped to his mouth and then continued further down. This was certainly his night of luck. "It'd be a damn shame if you were a regular shmuck."

"Oh I'm no ordinary schmuck," he promised.

She raised her brows but she didn't move away from him. "But you _are_ a schmuck?"

He laughed a little awkwardly and held a hand out. "Seamus Zelazny Harper."

She grinned wide and took a hold of his hand. "Riley. Just Riley."

He grinned. "Well, Just Riley, it's a pleasure to meet you." A memory of Satrina and her tesseracting buddies came to mind and Harper pulled away with a sudden frown. "As much as I love talking to a beautiful woman such as yourself, I gotta ask. What are you after?"

Riley blinked at him. Frowned, and backed away ever so slightly before blinking again. "I- I thought that that was obvious."

"No offence, it's just that I've had some bad luck with women recently. And the last thing I need is another trans-phasing woman with nothing but manipulation on her mind."

The confusion she wore was quickly wiped away with a look of seriousness as she back closer to him. "Well Seamus, I had a night of nothing but _fun_ planned out for me and I _had_ hoped they'd involve you."

"Well that depends. What kind of plans are we talking about here? The fun and wacky kind or the life threatening dangerous kind?"

A large grin spread across her face and a look of desire entered her eyes. "The fun, wacky and all types of sexy kind."

His mouth went dry at her words. He had to take a few long gulps before he opened his mouth to reply. "You'll have to tell me what some of these plans are."

"Or, I can show you them. Later."

He grinned. "Yes you can." Seamus Zelazny Harper still had it.


	2. Chapter 2

The Captain of the Eureka Maru pulled herself into the Captain's seat with a sigh and began tapping away at the control panels. It was late and Beka had returned sometime ago to find Trance already aboard. Tyr, of course, said he would find a place to stay on his own and Harper had said he would save himself a few Throes and come back to the ship for the night.

It was getting really late and he had yet to return and he hadn't checked in either. Beka didn't want to stay up for much longer but she could never sleep when her engineer was out getting himself into who knows what kind of trouble.

"Any word on Harper?"

Beka glanced at Trance over her shoulder. "No. It's impressive how long he can pester women for."

Trance smiled loosely and moved to stand by Beka's side. "He'll be fine. If you want I'll wait up for him."

Beka returned the smile to her friend. "No it's alright. I want to be awake in case we need to break him out of prison."

Trance laughed. "Like that time on the Eupholian drift."

"Exactly." A beep sounded and Beka frowned. "Hang on," she tapped at the controls and a moment later Harper's cheery, grinning face appeared. "Speaking of the trouble maker." She said to Trance as she took a closer look at the screen. She could see there was a kind of glazed look to Harper's eyes and Beka knew that he'd had his fair share of drinks. "Harper, nice of you to check in."

"Hey Boss," he said. "Listen, don't wait up for me. The Harper, has scored."

Beka and Trance shared a look with that conveyed the dubious feelings they both had. "With a machine? An android? Or are you just making this up?" Beka finally asked.

"No! A woman. A full fleshed, human, hot woman. Smart woman too."

She raised her brows. She was not hearing this was she? Harper did not find a woman and more importantly; said woman did not reciprocate. Right? "Harper how much have you had to drink?"

Harper gave a dismissive laugh and scrunched his face up into feigned hurt. "You have no faith in the Harper. Do you?" Beka arched one brow and watched as her old friend raised his eyes looking over the communicator to something or someone off screen. She waited and watched as his eyes appeared to follow this mystery something, not having to wait long to find out what Harper was looking at. To her surprise a female, definitely human, face appeared on the screen as she whispered something in Harper's ears. Whatever it was, Beka did not want to know. Harper turned his eyes to this woman with a look that the Eureka Maru Captain knew all too well as the man wanting to trail after a woman with urgency. "What kind of tricks?"

Beka turned a half disgusted and half surprised look up at Trance who seemed to be staring back at the communications screen with a determined look of thought.

"Harper," Beka said, her tone suggested a warning.

The engineer snapped his head back to his communicator. "Err, Boss?" He flicked his eyes back up in the direction of the woman.

"Stay out of trouble Harper." She said in a stern voice that left no room for argument. "We'll see you in the morning."

"Sure thing," he said before he disappeared from the screen.

Silence descended on the small cargo ship and Beka let her eyes linger on the screen for a little longer wondering who in their right mind would want to willingly spend a night with Harper. She wondered how her friend had managed it and immediately began to wonder what kind of trouble _this_ woman was going to bring with her. It was a commonality that seemed to follow Harper around, as every girl that he picked up always ended in some kind of trouble for him and sometimes the crew.

"Do you think we should be worried?" Trance asked.

Beka glanced up at her golden friend, still getting used to seeing a gold Trance instead of the purple girl she was used to, but Beka felt that in a lot of ways she was the same Trance she'd always known. "We'll be worried in the morning. Right now I'm going to get some sleep." She stood, starting to make her way to her bunk when she spotted Trance still staring at the black screen with her brows furrowed. "Should I be worried Trance?"

The golden girl lifted her eyes then and smiled. "No. We can be worried in the morning, like you said Beka. You should get some rest."

"Right," Beka said. "See you in the morning. If Harper calls and he's in trouble…"

"I'll let you know," the golden woman said with a smile before she slid into the pilot's seat.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Big thank you to** dino-dog83** for beta-ing and I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

* * *

Riley's place looked to be nothing more than a room in the back corner of the drift, but Harper didn't care about the room size or the lack of decor. All he cared about was the woman in front of him and the bed behind her.

There were things he'd learnt about her through their combined consumption of alcohol. The first being that she was definitely, one hundred percent human and she came from Earth. Cincinnati to be specific. When she'd told him that he'd spent quiet a few minutes grinning like an idiot, revelling in the thought of meeting this beautiful woman being from Earth, that wasn't something that happened every day. Maybe that's why it was working out so well for him. Maybe there was some special bond that the two Earthlings shared, something that was drawing her to him.

The second thing he'd learnt about Riley was that when he'd pulled her in for their first kiss she'd curled up in giggles when he touched her neck. It didn't take him long to discover her data port and he knew from experience that those things were all kinds of sensitive and ticklish.

The third thing he'd learnt in their short time together, was that she was a lot smarter than she looked. Dressed in dark cargo pants and a bright yellow sleeveless shirt that were both too big for her frame, along with the black boots and she had a dirty red scarf hanging around her neck. Harper would've taken her for a simple shop worker or even a vendor if she hadn't impressed him so much with her knowledge about getting more power from a ships engine than it 'officially' had to offer.

Harper was quickly pulled from his thoughts as she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him inside. It was just as small as it looked from the outside and the clutter, half built mechanisms and other unfinished inventions did nothing to increase the feeling of size.

When the door was slammed shut behind him, Harper's attention turned to the woman who'd pulled him all the way here, not that he was complaining of course. She beckoned him towards her with one finger and he grinned putting his hands on her waist before he leaned forward and kissed her. She tasted of Sparky cola with a hint of vodka. That was his drink of choice, and god how he loved it, but he loved it even more so on a woman.

The more they kissed, the urgency to go farther and do more was mounting, and it wasn't just him feeling it. The alcohol only helped to intensify their feelings as they began awkwardly pulling at belts, undoing buttons and tugging at zippers all the while laughing.

At one point they bumped into a table on the other side of the room. It was the sound of one of the gadgets falling to the floor in a large almost painful clatter that distracted them from the heated kisses. Harper glanced down at the broken item and winced feeling bad for his part in breaking the device. Riley turned to survey the damage with little concern all the while running a couple of fingers through his hair.

"I'll fix it later," she muttered turning her eyes back to his and peppering his neck in small hot kisses.

Curiosity got the better of the genius and he couldn't help but to question her, "What's it?"

"Err," she started as her head swung back down to face the broken pieces. "Footprint nullsification dee-vice," she slurred.

At least he wasn't the only one so far gone that speaking was difficult. He frowned at her. "What?"

"You attach to ships engines; it cancels out _any_ proton emersions or radiation leaks. Anything, that would point at you," she jabbed a finger at his chest and met his slightly glazed, slightly intoxicated, blue eyes, "And! Invisible to all scans." A laugh escaped her and the thoughts of any cheeky fun departed the Andromeda's Engineer for a few brief seconds.

He managed a disbelieving half grin, "No way."

"Yeah way."

He grinned. "But that's impossrable."

"Nearly."

"Does it work?" he questioned with his curiosity on high alert.

She looked back down at the broken pieces. "It will." She snapped her eyes back his, "Now, if you're done talking shop Seamus." She purred his name, making the butterflies in his stomach dance and his thoughts of the broken device on the floor disappear.

His mind was over taken with cheeky, dirty and very adult thoughts causing a goofy grin to appear on his face. "Riley, you can do to me whate'er the hell you wanna." She chuckled and moved closer as she pulled him in for another kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

Harper awoke with a slight ache at the base of his skull. It felt as though somebody had punched him in the back of the neck and left him for dead. Blinking he managed to open his sore eyes to see a faint light coming from somewhere on his left. He winced once and then quickly took in a mental inventory of what had happened last night.

Bar. Alcohol. Chichin. Displeased Kalderan's. Woman. More alcohol. Beka. MORE alcohol. Kissing. Giggling. Bed.

He jerked his body upright, the sheets falling from his chest to settle around his waist. Not recognising where he was he quickly scrunched his eyes shut momentarily, hoping to push back the growing head ache before he moved his eyes over the small room. It took only a manner of seconds for him to find the host of this place. She sat at a table that was cluttered with bits and pieces and junk and there was a single light illuminating the project in her hands. But what had drawn his attention, causing him to raise his brows, was her attire. As he looked her over from top to bottom he inventoried her attire, starting with the old baseball style cap with the brim turned 'round back with black grease marks that were scattered about, and it held back loose strands of her brown hair. Moving on to the red shirt she wore, he noted it was very familiar – definitely not hers, it was too big for her and left nothing to the imagination.

"Are you wearing anything underneath that?"

Riley laughed but didn't lift her eyes from her work station, if it could even be called that. "You're aware you said that out loud right?" she said with humour in her voice.

He dropped his gaze to the floor and grinned. "You bet I did," came his reply as he began searching for the remainder of his clothes. His boots were somewhere near to the door, socks not far after and his jacket seemed to have been thrown onto the only other table in the room. His pants were somewhere out of sight at the moment and his underwear hung on the corner of the chair she currently occupied. "Can I have them?" he said motioning to the off white garment.

She turned her eyes in his direction and upon meeting his eyes the corner of her mouth hooked into a smirk. "Sure, but I don't have an issue with the no pants thing."

He grinned and he slipped off her bed and caught his underwear as she threw them at him. "Usually I wouldn't either." He admitted slipping them on.

She raised one brow and sat back down. "But?"

"But," he chuckled and placing the sheets back on the bed, "my Boss might have a problem with it and I'm sure she'd want to make sure I'm not in any kind of trouble."

She seemed to pout as he stood and scanned the room for his pants again. "Not even the fun kind?" she asked.

"Oh I would love to stay for the fun kind..." He said letting the words hang in the air.

She nodded, "But you have to leave." It wasn't a question but more of a statement and Harper frowned at her words.

He found his pants and pulled them on as he spoke. "Well, hopefully not for a few days." He moved to stand next to her, watching her hands move as they worked on pulling a few pieces of metal together as she held back an assortment of wires. He tried to follow it with his eyes, tried to take in what she was doing. He had decided that whatever she was building there was still a lot of work to be done. He could see that much, but what he couldn't see was what it was going to be.

Deciding he needed to know now, he voiced his thoughts. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing the footprint nullification device." She answered as thought it should be obvious as she picked up a beaten and well used nano-welder, which had seen better days, and pressed it into a small space.

"How does it work again?"

She pursed her lips and held the nano-welder in place for several more seconds before putting it down. Her hand reached out to grab another incomplete device and she held up the gadget that was about the size of a bottle of Sparky Cola. "This integrates itself with the internal sensors to measure the readings being transmitted and at the same time it will cut out any radiation emissions, leaks or protons that are released." She put it down and picked up a third piece that looked like a whole lot of nothing to Harper. "This sends out miniscule EMP pulses that targets another ships scanners, ceasing any and all ability to detect."

He frowned and eyed the array of devices once again. In his opinion, she was sticking pieces of metal together and hoping for the best. "Really?"

She lifted one brow and angled her head up to eye him. "Don't believe me?"

"No, I believe that you believe it." Her confident look didn't waver as he gave an awkward chuckle before he picked up one of the three parts. Turing it over in his hands he saw her as she watched him out of the corner of her eye. The more he looked the more he could actually see what she had described. Maybe she did have a chance to make it work after all.

Maybe he could try something similar for the Andromeda. Invisible to all scan, that sure would be an advantage over anybody.

A beep sounded from his pockets and he recognised it as his communicator. He shuffled around for it only to find Trance's golden face smiling at him when he answered. "Trance," he smiled back and took a few steps away from Riley. "How can I help my golden friend?"

Trance raised her brows at him and shook her head. "Beka will want you to check in. In person Harper."

"Right."

"How's your head?"

He pulled a face, the drumming in his skull seeming to get louder. "It was fine until you said that."

Trance laughed and shook her head. "Come back to the Maru and I'll give you something for it."

"Right." He said and then Trance's face disappeared and he moved back to Riley's side. She didn't look up at him but he could see a smirk beginning at the corners of her mouth. "I'm going to need my shirt back."

She put everything down with careful precision and lifted her eyes up at him with mirth. She stood so that only a few inches separated them and she lifted a hand to draw a finger across a small white scar that marked a path at the bottom of his ribs. "Why don't you just take it then?"

Harper grinned. _Oh yeah, the Harper still has it. _


End file.
